Hail Storm

How to make sense of newbie cab apps

What’s Gett? Does anyone really use Lyft? Wait, there are cabs just for women?

So, the taxi landscape has totally exploded.

It’s not just Uber versus the yellow cabs anymore. Let’s talk out some of the newbies.

GettTen bucks. That’ll get you anywhere in Manhattan until 2015. (Harlemites, rejoice!) The only catch: low supply, high demand. Then again, that could be Uber employees jamming the lines.

Lyft Here, real people are the drivers. Or, they are in other cities. When the on-demand carpooling service launched in NYC this summer, it had to relinquish the peer-to-peer part and operate with licensed drivers through the Taxi & Limousine Commission. So ultimately, it’s just another non-Uber option.

SheRides This is perhaps the most talked about taxi launch yet. Why? It brings gender and safety (er, fear) into play. Female drivers transport female riders. (Analyze as you will.) Although, the company says it won’t officially open for business until 400 more drivers sign on.

Via You may remember us writing about this beta-test-stage commuting option a few months ago (continuous vans that, for now, shuttle Upper East Siders to Midtown). Turns out? It’s pretty successful (the service area is rapidly growing), still just as efficient (we’re card-carrying devotees) and even cheaper than before (a flat $5 now).